Yeah I know, I’m categorically underweight and I can eat a lot less balanced than most people and I’ve got to appreciate the body I have at 22 because when will it ever look this way again and bahbahbahbahbah.

But to all the ladies out there who enjoy dipping sweet things into chocolate frosting cans –how?! Ooh, child, do I ever miss the days when I could eat a king-sized Snickers bar without falling into a short, painful coma afterwards.

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Dear Eyjafjallajökull,

A few years ago the Discovery Channel (or History Channel, or Science Channel — my Googlings are varied) aired a special called “Ten Ways the World Will End.”  Despite the misleading title, it was about the likeliest ways we’re all going to die.  It was harrowing.  I watched it with my brother on some lazy Saturday while the parents were out, and I remember our experience was filled with both stunned silence and exclamations like “WHAT!” and “REALLY?!”

You should have seen the things that could happen.  Disasters that you’ve never even heard of, but are apparently the most likely ways.  Like, what the hell is a hypercane?  It’s a compact little hurricane that packs a world-crushing punch.  And seriously, what’s the likelihood of robots with artificial intelligence turning against us?  VERY GOOD — it was number two on the list! This doesn’t really surprise me, because I’ve watched the future-documentary called Battlestar Galactica, and those toasters are only too capable of wiping out 12 worlds, so our one planet doesn’t stand a chance (unless we all flee into the spaceship).

And what, pray tell, is a supervolcano?  I think you can figure that one out.  You probably know some of them, like your cousin and my neighbor, Yellowstone.  Essentially, that thing is just building up more and more rage, and everyone knows it’s a bad idea not to let off some steam here and there, or else you’ll end up like me last Friday night: one beer in and sobbing face-down on a pillow screaming into the phone about how everyone needs to BACK OFF while I try to make it out of college with ALL THIS PRESSURE ON ME.

Is that metaphor too much of a stretch?  Here, have a CGI look:

Despite the sunny optimism of the voice in this video, this is no laughing matter.   When the show aired, it was terrifying for sure.  I think my brother and I spent the rest of the evening tearing out our hair and contemplating the fact that one day we will die and there’s nothing we can do about it — especially when it comes to insane natural disasters.  Although, it became much less terrifying because the number one way we’re all going to die is (spoiler alert) global warming.  And as long as everything else is less likely than that, then at least none of these things will happen in my generation.  Because personally, I plan on having my curtain fall when I save a litter of puppies from a burning building (all of whom will grow up to be firehouse dogs, and a movie will be made about all of us).

All of that is to say: I’m not afraid of you, Eyjafjallajökull, okay.  I respect you too much to be afraid of you.  No, you’re not a supervolcano, but you are a volcano and no one is underestimating you for that.  I know what you’re capable of now.  The whole world knows.  You’re capable of taking out the skies and leaving all of human civilization stranded, just when we thought it was safe to fly again.  You’re reminding us that we are small and we don’t have everything figured out, and we are really, really bad at having contingency plans for things like this.  You’ve stomped your feet and made your point and even started some dirty thunderstorms.  You basically ARE Mordor at this stage.

But I want you to listen very closely to what I’m about to say.

If you even so much as think of spreading any more of that filthy volcanic ash over the great continent of Europe next week, and get my flight to Dublin canceled, you are going to bring forth such a mighty rage as has never been seen.  I will put you so far into the fucking ground that only the ghouls and goblins will hear you puff and pout about it.  So cool your jets, dry your eyes, and get a fucking grip already.

Love,

Molly

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It’s been a long time since I’ve done something different with my website, but I felt it coming.  It’s a big work in progress, as it involves a lot of elements that may not look so great on some computers.  If the fonts don’t look fancy, check your browser for updates.  As always, let me know if you spot anything that doesn’t look right.

The change is partly because my whole life is about to shift and it’s time for a step in a new, possibly disastrous direction.  And I think the blog needs to come along for the ride.  I’ve been posting a lot less over the last year, mostly because a lot of what I do these days closely involves Someone else, and unless it has to do with me throwing up in the middle of the night while he sleeps, it doesn’t really have any business on the Internet.  (Oh, what strange times are these when my food poisoning is one of the only stories that merits publication.)

I’m trying to decide exactly how I’m going to approach the blog now.  Of course I’ll still write about myself, because I am and always will be a narcissist, but I’m leaning towards a money blog.  I haven’t brainstormed any fun budgetary experiments (yet), but there’s no question that one major theme of the coming year is going to be How to Make and Save Money as a Recent College Graduate during a Recession in a Completely Unnecessary Field.  So, after 10 years of personal blogging, I think it’s time I got into productive blogging: how can I make my struggles with money useful to everyone else?

Let the brainstorming commence!

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I went on a girl date.

Not just any girl date, but a blind girl date.  So blind, in fact, that I don’t think the other girl knew it was a girl date.  But for me, it was a chance to make a connection with another girl, to establish a friendship in a new environment, so that when I arrive in Ireland I won’t be totally alone, friend-wise.

My boyfriend, orchestrator of the date and thus the modern day equivalent of the very attractive Rashida Jones, teased me mercilessly before and after.  Was I nervous?  What would we talk about?  He escorted me there, made small talk, and then very cleverly excused himself to go back to work.  It went pretty well, but she played it cool.  When I met my boyfriend again later, he asked how long I was going to wait to friend her?  Would I write on her wall, or send or a message, or just not?  What did we talk about?  Were there sparks?  Did she like me?  Did I like her?  Do I think we’ll connect again when I get back to Ireland?*

I said later, “You know, scenarios like this are why all my friends used to think I was actually gay!”

What happened to making friends?  It used to be so easy.  High school was, in looking back, awesome: hanging out with your friends all day, doing minimal work, and talking back to teachers who didn’t really mind.  There was no real pressure to bond with anyone, you just did because they were there, all day every day.

I haven’t made a real friend since then.  College was a total wash in that regard — it was impossible for me to connect with many people at BC, and I drifted from the few that I liked.  Those that I made at Trinity are either gone to their respective home countries or hate me because I’m beautiful (read: dating someone beautiful).  Even now that I’m back home, I see my best friends once a month, if that.  I’m not forced into anyone’s company for very long, so nothing lasts.

I know most of that’s my own fault.  I’m a recluse, and I don’t enjoy going out in America, and so when I’m invited places I just decline and go back to playing with my stuffed animals.  But I’m not talking about at night.  I mean, don’t most people have those friends they can call up to go to lunch?  That they can jump into conversations with without having to first ask everything polite, because they talk so much that they already know what they’re up to?  That have long phone calls for no reason and throw birthday parties for each other?

I don’t know what I’m talking about, I never made a friend-friend at BC so I don’t know how we girls are supposed to interact at this age.  The last all-girl several-hour get-together I had involved pasta salad, boxes of chocolate, and Love Actually, and that was Christmas 2008.  All I know is, college is over in a few months, and for the rest of my life I will be desperately reaching for connectible points in every female interaction I have.  Topics of conversation I’ve got in my repertoire: menstruation, Taylor Swift, commitment, Ellen DeGeneres, going to bed early.  Any other girly talking points I should brush up on?

*She friended me back!

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Today the Apple desktop computer at my internship crashed.

I’ll give you a moment to stop choking on your wheatgrass.

Yes indeedy, MacPerfect couldn’t handle more than four tabs in Safari plus one open TextEdit.  (Question: when doing bulleted lists in TextEdit, how on earth do you reverse a bullet once you’ve indented it?

• Like this.
  - This is an indent.
• But then I want to go back like this.

Anyway.)

I tried to close the windows but kept getting that dancing little pinwheel.  I thought, “What this system needs is a Ctrl-Alt-Delete.”  I then attempted it and was disappointed.  Mac users tell me they have never had the glitch of a frozen window leaving a trail around their screen when they drag it, to which I say, O RLY?  Because your top-of-the-screen Finder bar (aka fake Start bar) certainly did.  And then the bloody thing wouldn’t let me restart.  It literally told me, “We will not restart until you close your programs.”  To which I say, WHAT FUCK?

“Do you usually have problems with this computer?”

“Ohhhh yeah,” replied one of your kind.

As long as I will be forced into dragging that slowass mouse around and accepting that “media” automatically equals “Apple,” I will bring the fight.

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I am a notorious Apple hater, hater of all products except the iPod, which even I can admit is the greatest of all the great things in this great world.  The iPod is my ultimate status symbol, made all the better by the fact that I have an iPod Touch, and made all the worse by the fact that I don’t have the iPhone, and I know people are judging me.  Because I am judging them right back.

But iPod/iPhone aside, I detest all things Apple.  AppleTV?  Unnecessary!  That would mean you’re watching your iTunes downloads in the privacy of your own home, when I’m pretty sure the whole point of iTunes downloads is to watch them in public, on the train into Boston, while all the poor working schmucks around you peer over your shoulder and wonder why they don’t have that awesome iPod touch/iPhone so that they too can watch Mad Men instead of reading the news.  That fucking computer mouse?  Impractical!  I’ve got two fingers on the mouse so I should have two buttons, and good frigging grief, when you’ve got a bunch of people around you on Macs, it doesn’t matter if the keyboard is basically silent, because the stillness is replaced by the sound of everyone slapping the mouse down on the desk to get some response from its way-too-slow-and-unsensitive rolling ball.  Safari?  Slowest motherfucking browser this side of Internet Explorer, and it NEVER interprets my coding correctly, thereby driving my short-lived web designing career into the ground.  Every single MacBook ever?  WHY IS THE CLOSING BUTTON ON THE LEFT SIDE OF THE SCREEN.  Just because you do things opposite doesn’t make you more creative, it just makes you slightly more European.

Over the summer, my brother wanted a MacBook, and I wanted a new iPod, but neither of us wanted to pay full price, so we pulled a fast one over my good friend Dorian or Christoffer or whatever douchebag Mac guy was working there that day and got ourselves a student deal.  As the student in question, I had to pretend to be looking for a computer for myself and was ever-so convincing in my “Ooh wow, this is exactly the program I need to write my essays on, I can’t explain it, but somehow the Mac version of Microsoft Word is better than the Microsoft version, despite being a carbon copy… maybe it’s just me, it just seems so intuitive.  Oops, I’m so bad at using these computer mice, what did I just click?  Oh, iPhoto!  Finally I can remove red-eye from all of my portraits, a feature not available on any other free post-processing program.  What’s that?  I can send these photos through email with a click of a button?!  That’s PERFECT, because I have tons of friends who use Macs, and now we’ll all be hanging out together more to keep an eye on the upcoming Apple Keynote, and now I can send them pictures of myself that I took with this camera–and stretched into a goofy face! Whoops, there I go again, closing out of windows when I’m just trying to find the File button!”  Meanwhile, Dorian’s losing his shit and his Indiana Jones hat over being in the presence of a Mac Virgin.

Once back home, I believe I said something to my brother like, “There, enjoy your devil’s machinery.” I don’t need no GarageBand, I don’t need it to be syncing my files at every second of everyday, and I certainly don’t need no fancy screensavers.  If there is one fault of the iPod, it’s that it’s an Apple product, which means that at any point, Apple can stop me from using it: they can force me to download an update that will prevent me from, say, downloading outside the United States (something I’ve avoided thus far).  That’s just crazy ridiculous, and I don’t like the feeling of Steve Jobs being inside my purse.  I don’t trust that shit.

Monday in lecture, my fears were realized.  For whatever reason, the most Englishy English class (“The Book,” a historical remembrance of the book, physically and textually, gag me with a spoon) has been situated in a computer lab.  But not just any computer lab–a MAC LAB.  Full of sleek screens and no harddrive in sight.  How do they work, then? I wondered.  From where does their power stem?

A handout was passed around, and I was flipping through its pages as the lecturer read.

“I’m just going to point out some of the tricky spots of Old English, because you’ll be coming across them a lot.  So the first line says–”

“HELLO, EVERYBODY.”

I reeled away from my computer, shielding myself with the handout.  The voice had boomed from wherever the Apple speakers are on my monitor.  The class looked at me and laughed at the timing of the voice.

“I have no idea,” I said, turning down the audio.

We continued on while I vaguely wondered what browser I might have opened to elicit that message.  Minutes went by and we all went on to silently read online–all silent, that is, except my computer, which proceeded to shout, “HEY.  Z, Z, Z.”

“What?” I cried, glancing at the corner with the sound controls: it had been returned to full volume.

Some people grew more amused, others less at my Mac’s expressions of general affability.  “SOUNDS GREAT,” it said, and here’s where I truly began to panic.  Where was it learning these messages?  I grabbed my phone–was it reading my texts?!  No, no messages yet.  I’d quickly checked my Trinity email–was it reading those?!  Didn’t seem to be.  But how was I to be sure?  If it could control the volume against my wishes, what was to stop it from broadcasting personal messages?

I logged off the computer and moved to the next one, giving the bewildered girl across from me an even more bewildered headshake.  “Don’t go on that one,” I said, setting my notes down.

And as I did so, the computer, now completely logged off, said, “HELP.”

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU GIVE YOUR TECHNOLOGY TOO MUCH INTUITION.

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